FOF #2488 – A Love Letter to Haters

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We do a talk show, you know the podcast you’re listening to right now and from time to time we, and by “we” I mean mostly “me” put our foot in our mouths because we’re passionate about things and when we see something go wrong, we speak out.

Today, we take a look at how we’ve handled online trolls, astroturfers, or regular bullies who don’t like what we have to say and who make it their #1 agenda to put a stop to our creative efforts.

With The_Dumptruck and places like DragRace, Reddit has devolved into a hot mess. I agree with you, it’s a filtering issue, but Conde Nasty (who owns and runs Reddit) should spend some time giving people the tools they need to block people and content out better. It’s right now a lynch mob shitshow.

Thanks for posting that, but I think the user agreement allows for people to raise funds. You can’t use the reddit site to directly sell stuff on there (how would that even be possible) but I’ve seen dozens of forums ask for money, especially political groups.

Reddit is not intended to be a marketplace for any goods or services. However, you may find commercial links, coupons, deals, advertisements and other third-party offers on reddit. In addition, reddit may have affiliate relationships with certain of these third parties and may receive compensation for any purchase made from them. reddit is not a party to, nor in any way responsible for, any transactions you have with these third parties, even if reddit has an affiliate relationship with such parties. For this reason, any transactions you undertake are your responsibility alone, so be careful.

9 You may not use reddit to conduct transactions for any illegal goods or services.

I don’t like lynch mobs, it was a bad idea to throw the party at a space that was being used for something else and ultimately it would have been better to have it at some bar where people under 21 could have gotten in (in Califnornia as I understand people can get into bars but not drink if they are under 21.)

26 Moderating a subreddit is an unofficial, voluntary position. We reserve the right to revoke that position for any user at any time. If you choose to moderate a subreddit, you agree to the following:

You may not enter into any form of agreement on behalf of reddit, or the subreddit which you moderate, without our written approval.

You may not perform moderation actions in return for any form of compensation or favor from third-parties.

The rules got violated when? When they started raising funds for a meetup in LA or when they threw a bad party with those funds?

It sounds like the moderators were in constant communication with Reddit the entire time, so I’m wondering if they were so concerned about this aspect of the agreement, why nobody said anything until long after the money was raised and spent?

On another note, does this mean that we don’t have control over our own communities on Reddit? So if we build a popular community, and then decide to end it for any reason, can Reddit take it over and assign their own moderators?

If that’s the case, nobody should be using Reddit. It would be the equivalent of Facebook taking control over your group if you decided you didn’t want to run it anymore.

> The rules got violated when? When they started raising funds for a meetup in LA or when they threw a bad party with those funds?

> It sounds like the moderators were in constant communication with Reddit the entire time, so I’m wondering if they were so concerned about this aspect of the agreement, why nobody said anything until long after the money was raised and spent?

That’s not the problem it seems to be clear that they had the okay from reddit but only the mods know and as I said in the discussion that’s between reddit and the mods

> You may not perform moderation actions in return for any form of compensation or favor from third-parties.

That is the problematic part because what PEG did can be seen as compensation but once again that’s between reddit and the mods

> On another note, does this mean that we don’t have control over our own communities on Reddit?

“Moderating a subreddit is an unofficial, voluntary position. We reserve the right to revoke that position for any user at any time.”

So yes that’s what the TOS says. It’s is the same for any kind of social media, Facebook, google plus etc.
That’s capitalism. There house there rules.

> So if we build a popular community, and then decide to end it for any reason, can Reddit take it over and assign their own moderators?

Yes

> If that’s the case, nobody should be using Reddit.

If you want control over “your” community you better host it on your own dedicated system where you have all the legal rights and responsibilities.

> It would be the equivalent of Facebook taking control over your group if you decided you didn’t want to run it anymore.

Facebook can take over or shut down a group any time they want. People just don’t read the contract they agree too when they sign up. Also look into the usage rights that you grant a social media provider on your IP.

There’s a reason why I explicitly state

“All my original content belongs to me. No rights are granted to 3ed parties outside the context and scope of this site.” at all my social media presences.

You guy should make an episode about the TOS situation on social media. I recommend to invite a lawyer for that because it’s a really tricky subject matter.

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About Marc Felion

Marc Felion is the co-host and producer of the Feast of Fun podcast. He lives in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago with his partner and co-host Fausto Fernós. He loves sci-fi, murder mysteries and pumping iron.